Dmytro Lubinets, the man who tracks every missing name in captivity

Introduction: the quiet face of an endless fight

A deal signed in the middle of an exchange

On June 27, 2026, as dozens of former Ukrainian prisoners were finally reunited with their families, a technical agreement — far less spectacular but just as crucial — was reached between two men whom the war has placed face to face. Ukraine's Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, and his Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova, agreed to exchange complete lists of missing servicemen lost under particular circumstances, according to RBC-Ukraine.

"We exchanged extensive lists of military personnel from both sides who went missing under particular circumstances, in order to verify whether they are held in captivity," said Lubinets, quoted by RBC-Ukraine. That sentence, bureaucratic on its surface, hides a wrenching human reality: thousands of Ukrainian families who still do not know whether their son, husband, or brother is dead, alive, or held somewhere inside Russia's vast prison apparatus.

A man at the center of a humanitarian machine

Since his appointment, Dmytro Lubinets has become one of the most active and visible figures in Ukrainian humanitarian diplomacy. Unlike the ministers and generals who negotiate the broad strategic lines of the conflict, he negotiates names, dates of birth, case numbers — the raw material of administrative survival for thousands of families shattered by the Russo-Ukrainian war.

His office documents, verifies, cross-checks, and forwards tens of thousands of individual cases day after day. According to a report from his office reviewed via ombudsman.gov.ua, roughly 100,000 people are listed in Ukraine's registry of persons missing under particular circumstances, including nearly 43,352 civilians.

The third exchange of the great "1000 for 1000" pact

160 Ukrainian soldiers finally come home

The agreement on the missing-persons lists came the day after the third phase of the "1000 for 1000" exchange, originally negotiated during the three-day ceasefire brokered by the United States in May. On June 26, 2026, 160 Ukrainian servicemen were released from Russian captivity, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, quoted by RBC-Ukraine. All had been held since 2022.

Among those freed were 115 defenders of Mariupol, fighters from the Azovstal plant and units that had fought in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy directions. The youngest was 26 years old, the oldest 66, according to figures relayed by RBC-Ukraine.

An Emirati mediation that has become routine

As with previous exchanges, the United Arab Emirates handled the humanitarian mediation of the operation, a role Abu Dhabi has occupied almost systematically since the war began. According to Euronews, this exchange marked the 76th prisoner swap between the two countries since 2022, a figure that shows just how much this mechanism has paradoxically become one of the only stable forms of cooperation between Kyiv and Moscow.

Russia's defense ministry, for its part, confirmed it had recovered 160 Russian servicemen, transferred to Belarus to receive medical and psychological care before their final return to Russia, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Yana Lantratova, Moscow's new counterpart

A changing of the guard at the Russian ombudsman's office

Yana Lantratova replaced Tatiana Moskalkova as Human Rights Commissioner of the Russian Federation in May 2026. Her appointment marked the start of a new phase of communication between the two ombudsmen on prisoner and civilian hostage files, according to The Kyiv Independent.

At their very first meeting in Belarus on June 5, 2026, Lubinets and Lantratova agreed to "start from scratch" on verifying all lists of prisoners of war and civilian hostages, a negotiation that lasted more than three hours, according to The Kyiv Independent.

Clearly established humanitarian priorities

Lubinets insisted on several priority categories for future repatriations: prisoners who are severely wounded or ill, as well as those held the longest. He also handed the Russian side a list of penal colonies and pretrial detention centers where, according to Kyiv, the rights of Ukrainian prisoners of war are most severely violated.

In return, he obtained preliminary assurances that Russia was prepared to conduct monitoring visits at these facilities and share the results — a commitment whose concrete implementation on the ground has yet to be demonstrated.

The documented ordeal of Ukrainian prisoners

Systemic torture denounced before the UN

In March 2026, Lubinets delivered a chilling testimony before the UN Human Rights Council: according to United Nations data, more than 95% of Ukrainian prisoners of war suffered systematic torture in Russian captivity, and at least 337 Ukrainian prisoners had been deliberately executed by Russia by the end of 2025, according to The Kyiv Independent.

"Russia has turned torture into state policy," Lubinets said, quoted by RBC-Ukraine, calling on the international community to strengthen accountability mechanisms against Moscow.

The "Made in Russia. Delivered into captivity" project

To systematically document these abuses, Lubinets's office launched a project titled "Made in Russia. Delivered into captivity," presented in Kyiv in May 2026. The program aims to develop new tools to fight war crimes committed against Ukrainian prisoners, including direct negotiations between the two countries' ombudsmen, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

The project illustrates a typical approach for Lubinets: rather than simply denouncing abuses, he tries to build concrete, measurable mechanisms that could one day serve as evidence before international war-crimes tribunals.

Civilians, the hardest blind spot to solve

Nearly 1,900 confirmed civilians, up to 16,000 suspected

According to Lubinets, quoted by RBC-Ukraine, Russia currently holds nearly 1,900 confirmed Ukrainian civilians in its prisons, but the real number of abducted civilians could reach as high as 16,000 people. Of these verified cases, only 892 have been officially confirmed through the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Ukraine's registry of persons missing under particular circumstances contains roughly 16,000 additional civilians whose fate and detention status remain unknown, a gray zone that weighs heavily on tens of thousands of Ukrainian families.

An obstacle bigger than the military one

"Repatriating civilians remains the hardest part of the prisoner exchange process," Lubinets insisted, quoted by RBC-Ukraine. Unlike servicemen, whose status is governed by the Geneva Conventions, civilians held by Russia often fall outside any clear legal framework, which considerably complicates their identification and return.

Russian forces frequently hold civilians and prisoners of war in the same cells, further blurring the verification efforts carried out by Lubinets's office and its international partners.

The weight of propaganda and scams

Russian services target grieving families

The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War revealed as early as January 2025 that Russian intelligence services and the military attempt to influence relatives of Ukrainian prisoners by contacting them immediately after capture, according to Ukrainska Pravda. This practice is clearly aimed at exploiting families' psychological distress for propaganda or disinformation purposes.

In addition, scam networks also exploit these families' vulnerability, promising, for a fee, to add their loved one's name to exchange lists — a vile fraud that thrives on the desperate hope of people already devastated by uncertainty.

A phone call as a symbol of humanity

On July 1, 2026, Lubinets proposed to Lantratova that a reciprocal right be established allowing prisoners of war to call their relatives for at least three minutes, according to Ukrainska Pravda. "If this is guaranteed for Ukrainian prisoners of war, it will also be guaranteed for Russian prisoners of war," he specified.

This proposal, modest on its face, captures Lubinets's method well: moving forward step by step, through small concrete humanitarian victories, rather than waiting for an overall political resolution of the conflict that, for now, remains out of reach.

A toll that keeps growing despite the exchanges

Roughly 4,000 Ukrainian servicemen still captive

Despite the multiple waves of exchanges organized since the start of the year, Russia still holds roughly 7,000 Ukrainians captive, including more than 4,000 servicemen, according to figures cited by President Zelensky and relayed by The Kyiv Independent. For its part, Ukraine holds roughly 4,000 Russian prisoners of war and has reiterated its readiness to proceed with an "all for all" exchange format.

In 2025, Ukraine carried out 10 prisoner exchanges, bringing home 2,080 servicemen but only 230 civilians, according to data from the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War cited by The Kyiv Independent. This persistent imbalance confirms that, despite progress, there is still a long road ahead before the humanitarian issue is fully resolved.

The lasting trauma of survivors

Beyond the numbers, Lubinets regularly stresses the deep psychological distress experienced by released prisoners. During a previous exchange, he noted that many freed Ukrainians suffered significant psychological disorders after captivity, according to testimonies relayed by RFE/RL.

This trauma, often invisible to a public that celebrates the return of prisoners, poses a major challenge for Ukrainian social and medical services, already overwhelmed by the needs created by more than four years of full-scale war.

The lingering shadow of Olenivka

A tragedy that has never been solved

At his last meeting with Lantratova, Lubinets personally delivered a letter written by the mothers and families of the young men who suffered at Olenivka, according to Interfax-Ukraine. That prison, tragically associated with a deadly explosion that killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners in 2022, remains a symbol of Russian opacity over the fate of captives.

Lubinets has also repeatedly called on the United Nations to relaunch investigations into this tragedy, without any definitive conclusion ever being made public by an independent international body.

The pursuit of truth as a guiding thread

This refusal to abandon the Olenivka file, year after year, illustrates a constant in Lubinets's work: he never closes a case until the full truth has been established, even when the odds of getting a clear answer from Moscow seem slim.

This persistence, which might seem futile to some outside observers, is precisely the added value of his role: maintaining constant pressure, case by case, name by name, until justice is done or the truth comes out.

The central role of the United Arab Emirates

Backstage diplomacy that has become indispensable

Since the start of the conflict, the United Arab Emirates has built a reputation as a reliable mediator between Kyiv and Moscow, a role neither the United Nations nor any Western power has managed to occupy so durably. Abu Dhabi facilitated last May's exchange, a deal involving 205 people from each side, as well as February's exchange involving 314 prisoners, according to Euronews.

This neutrality displayed by the Emirates rests on economic and diplomatic relations maintained simultaneously with Washington, Moscow, and Kyiv — a balancing act that allows this small Gulf state to play a disproportionate role in the humanitarian resolution of this major conflict.

A model other countries are watching closely

Several Western diplomats have privately praised the effectiveness of this Emirati mediation, which contrasts with the slowness and heaviness of traditional UN channels. This model, according to some observers, could inspire other humanitarian mediation efforts in future conflicts where trust between belligerent parties is virtually nonexistent.

Still, this dependence on a single mediator also carries risks: any deterioration in relations between Abu Dhabi and either party could weaken the entire exchange mechanism, which remains, to this day, one of the few functioning points of contact between Kyiv and Moscow.

The international legal dimension of the case

Toward prosecutions for war crimes

The documentation work carried out by Lubinets and his office is not aimed solely at facilitating immediate exchanges: it also forms the basis of a potential legal case before international bodies. Testimonies of systematic torture, gathered from 95% of released Ukrainian prisoners, could one day serve as evidence before the International Criminal Court or other competent tribunals.

This legal dimension gives added meaning to every testimony collected, every date logged, every detention site identified: beyond the immediate humanitarian urgency, this is about building a documented record that could, in time, hold Russian officials accountable for their actions.

The current limits of international justice

Despite the scale of evidence gathered, no significant conviction has yet been handed down against senior Russian officials for the documented crimes against Ukrainian prisoners. This judicial slowness, typical of international mechanisms facing powerful states shielded by their seat on the UN Security Council, fuels legitimate frustration among victims' families.

For the West, this case represents a crucial test of the credibility of the international legal order: if the documented crimes against Ukrainian prisoners go unpunished, it would send a dangerous signal to every regime that might be tempted to violate the Geneva Conventions with impunity in future conflicts.

The psychological impact on Ukrainian society

Families hanging on every announcement

Every new wave of prisoner exchanges triggers, across all of Ukraine, a mix of intense hope and deep anguish among families of the missing, who scan published lists hoping to recognize a familiar name. This collective emotional strain, repeated for more than four years, shapes a significant part of Ukrainian social fabric in wartime.

Associations of prisoners' families, very active on social media and in Ukrainian public life, exert constant pressure on authorities to speed up negotiations and keep the prisoner issue at the top of the national political agenda, despite the many other wartime emergencies.

A society that refuses to forget its captives

This constant civic mobilization sets Ukraine apart from many other countries at war, where the fate of prisoners of war often ends up fading behind other national priorities. Here, every prisoner matters individually, every name is repeated publicly, every anniversary of a capture is commemorated by relatives and sometimes covered by national media.

This culture of active remembrance, sustained in part by the communication work of Lubinets's office, helps maintain constant diplomatic pressure on Moscow, which cannot indefinitely ignore the international attention paid to this humanitarian issue.

Lessons drawn from previous ceasefires

The fragile May ceasefire as a catalyst

The three-day ceasefire negotiated by the United States in May 2026 served as a catalyst for the entire "1000 for 1000" exchange process now underway. Although this ceasefire did not lead to lasting peace, it nonetheless created a temporary framework sufficient to launch a humanitarian momentum that continued well after it expired.

This sequence illustrates a complex reality of the conflict: even in the absence of major political progress toward peace, certain humanitarian mechanisms can keep functioning almost autonomously, carried by bureaucratic inertia and international pressure rather than by renewed political will from either capital.

A replicable model for other humanitarian files

Some analysts suggest that this model of sequential exchanges, decoupled from broader political negotiations, could serve as a template for other humanitarian issues in this conflict, notably the return of Ukrainian children deported to Russia, a case that remains notably less advanced than that of adult prisoners of war.

The gap in progress between these two humanitarian files likely reveals Moscow's selective willingness to cooperate only on issues where it sees an immediate diplomatic benefit, while stalling on more politically sensitive files such as deported children.

The international community's view

Western support still too timid

Despite the many statements of support issued by Western capitals toward Ukraine, the international community's concrete involvement in the specific prisoner issue remains largely limited relative to the scale of the problem documented by Lubinets and his team. Few Western countries have set up pressure mechanisms specifically targeting the issue of prisoners of war and detained civilians.

This relative international restraint contrasts with the scale of diplomatic resources deployed for other aspects of the conflict, notably arms deliveries and economic sanctions, suggesting an implicit hierarchy of priorities that leaves the humanitarian prisoner file largely in the hands of the two ombudsmen alone.

The limited but real role of the International Committee of the Red Cross

The International Committee of the Red Cross continues to play an essential verification role, though limited by the restricted access Russian authorities grant its representatives. Only 892 civilians have been officially confirmed by this body out of the roughly 1,900 cases already recorded by Kyiv, a gap that illustrates the structural limits of independent humanitarian verification in this conflict.

For the West, strengthening the resources and access granted to the ICRC should be an immediate diplomatic priority, as this mechanism remains one of the only ones capable of providing credible, neutral verification of the fate of prisoners and civilians held by Russia.

Washington's diplomatic weight in the negotiations

A background but decisive role

Although the United States does not directly take part in the negotiations conducted by the two ombudsmen, its diplomatic influence remains decisive in the overall architecture of these exchanges. The May ceasefire, negotiated under American pressure, directly paved the way for the "1000 for 1000" deal that now structures the entire release timeline.

This American involvement, though discreet on the specific prisoner file, illustrates the broader doctrine of the Trump administration toward the conflict: favoring tangible, negotiable results, even partial ones, rather than waiting for a comprehensive political settlement that remains, for now, out of reach for both capitals.

Pressure that could intensify

Some Western diplomats believe Washington could apply additional pressure on Moscow to speed up the pace of exchanges, notably by conditioning certain economic relief measures on measurable progress in the humanitarian file of prisoners and detained civilians.

Such a strategy, if implemented consistently, could transform a mechanism currently driven largely by the ad hoc goodwill of the two ombudsmen into a structural diplomatic lever capable of significantly accelerating the return of remaining captives.

Conclusion: humane diplomacy in an inhumane war

The bet on technical dialogue despite the war

The agreement reached between Dmytro Lubinets and Yana Lantratova on June 27, 2026 is a reminder that, even in the middle of a war of staggering brutality, certain humanitarian channels can survive and produce tangible results for desperate families. It is neither peace nor even a lasting ceasefire, but it is a form of minimal dignity preserved for those whose fate remains suspended between two warring countries.

Lubinets's patient, methodical work illustrates a truth often overlooked in media coverage of armed conflicts: behind the broad strategic lines and military tallies, there are thousands of individual stories that demand just as rigorous and sustained attention.

A fight far from over

With roughly 100,000 people still listed as missing under particular circumstances and thousands of Ukrainian families hanging on every newly exchanged list, Lubinets's work is only beginning. Every exchange, every technical agreement, every verified name represents a modest but real victory in a fight that, at this stage of the conflict, seems far from finished.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Who I am and my acknowledged biases

I sign my work as Maxime Marquette, columnist-analyst for mad-m.ca. I openly claim a pro-Ukrainian editorial line: I consider President Volodymyr Zelensky a courageous leader facing an unjustified aggression, and I condemn without reservation the Russian invasion and the documented war crimes against Ukrainian prisoners.

I rely exclusively on verifiable journalistic and institutional sources to establish the facts in this profile. Figures related to prisoners, missing persons, and exchanges are changing rapidly and could be revised in the coming weeks. My personal opinions, always marked in italics, are clearly distinguished from the reported and sourced facts.

Sources

Primary sources

Ukraine, Russia swap lists of missing military personnel, official says — RBC-Ukraine, June 27, 2026

Ukrainian, Russian ombudsmen discuss POW exchange mechanisms — Interfax-Ukraine, June 27, 2026

Right of Freedom — Official report of the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, May 2026

Secondary sources

Russia and Ukraine swap 160 soldiers each in latest prisoner exchange — Euronews, June 26, 2026

Ukraine, Russia agree to 'start from scratch' on POW lists after ombudsmen meet in Belarus — The Kyiv Independent, June 7, 2026

Ukraine's ombudsman reveals who is hardest to bring back from Russian captivity — RBC-Ukraine, June 26, 2026

Ukraine's human rights commissioner proposes three-minute calls between POWs and their families — Ukrainska Pravda, July 1, 2026